The name is derived from the Japanese name for the plant East Asian arrowroot(Pueraria montana var. You will … Photo credit: DJ Moorhead/Univ. What helps Kudzu to thrive is its root system that forms very deep in the soil. Now that scientists at last are attaching real numbers to the threat of kudzu, it’s becoming clear that most of what people think about kudzu is wrong. As with most aggressive exotic species, eradication requires persistence in monitoring and thoroughness in treating patches during a multi-year program. And because it looked as if it covered everything in sight, few people realized that the vine often fizzled out just behind that roadside screen of green. The kudzu is a fast-growing, woody, somewhat hairy vine that may grow to a length of 18 m (60 feet) in one season. Conservation biologists are taking a closer look at the natural riches of the Southeastern United States, and they describe it as one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, in many ways on par with tropical forests. These roots are hard to dig out completely. “The Vine that ate the South” is no longer just a southern problem either. By 1900 kudzu was available through mail order and sold mainly as an inexpensive livestock forage. 7: 165-169. Kudzu was introduced to the United States in 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Southern Journal of Applied Forestry. It has large leaves, long racemes with late-blooming reddish purple flowers, and flat, hairy seed pods. Repeated applications are usually required to kill every root crown. You will … Thirty years younger The Kudzu vine can grow up to 12 feet in a day and is not slowed down by poor conditions. All 3 leaves will be … The more I investigate, the more I recognize that kudzu’s place in the popular imagination reveals as much about the power of American mythmaking, and the distorted way we see the natural world, as it does about the vine’s threat to the countryside. Kudzu is a group of climbing, coiling, and trailing perennial vines native to much of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and some Pacific islands, but invasive in many parts of the world, primarily North America. In places where it was once relatively easy to get a photograph of kudzu, the bug-infested vines are so crippled they can’t keep up with the other roadside weeds. l… The myth of kudzu has indeed swallowed the South, but the actual vine’s grip is far more tenuous. In the often-cited poem “Kudzu,” Georgia novelist James Dickey teases Southerners with their own tall tales, invoking an outrageous kudzu-smothered world where families close the windows at night to keep the invader out, where the writhing vines and their snakes are indistinguishable. As you walk closer to the vines you will locate intertwined clusters of them. Origin and Distribution A native of Asia, kudzu was introduced into the United States at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. By 1900 kudzu was available through mail order and sold mainly as an inexpensive livestock forage. Kudzu is an invasive plant species in the United States. It was introduced to southerners at the New Orleans (Louisiana) Exposition in 1884-86. I had no reason to doubt declarations that kudzu covered millions of acres, or that its rampant growth could consume a large American city each year. Unfortunately, it quickly became a problem because of its rapid growth. In the latest careful sampling, the U.S. Forest Service reports that kudzu occupies, to some degree, about 227,000 acres of forestland, an area about the size of a small county and about one-sixth the size of Atlanta. Imported from Japan in the 19th century, promoted by the Soil Conservation Service to stem soil erosion, kudzu morphed in a few decades from an … E.O. Citation: Miller, James H.; Edwards, Boyd. Farmers still couldn’t find a way to make money from the crop. (Pueraria lobata, or P. thunbergiana), twining perennial vine that is a member of a genus belonging to the family Leguminosae. Cut the Vines. In the decades that followed kudzu’s formal introduction at the 1876 World’s Fair Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, farmers found little use for a vine that could take years to establish, was nearly impossible to harvest and couldn’t tolerate sustained grazing by horses or cattle. In news media and scientific accounts and on some government websites, kudzu is typically said to cover seven million to nine million acres across the United States. Though “not terribly worried” about the threat of kudzu, Loewenstein calls it “a good poster child” for the impact of invasive species precisely because it has been so visible to so many. … As you walk closer to the vines you will locate intertwined clusters of them. www.forestryimages.org. Kudzu was introduced into the US in 1878 from Japan as a Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and New Orleans in 1883 during an exposition. Its growth is not “sinister,” as Willie Morris, the influential editor of Harper’s Magazine, described in his many stories and memoirs about life in Yazoo City, Mississippi. Kudzu came from Japan.kudzu was brought over from Japan to prevent erosion during WWII. It was conspicuous even at 65 miles per hour, reducing complex and indecipherable landscape details to one seemingly coherent mass. Though William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and others in that first great generation of Southern writers largely ignored kudzu, its metaphorical attraction became irresistible by the early 1960s. It was planted with the idea that it could be a solution for soil erosion, but its aggressive spread has proven to be a growing problem rather than an ecological solution, and it's considered an invasive species in the South. The Civilian Conservation Corps and southern farmers planted kudzu to reduce soil erosion. So if the all-consuming-kudzu myth is wrong, where did it come from? And though many sources continue to repeat the unsupported claim that kudzu is spreading at the rate of 150,000 acres a year—an area larger than most major American cities—the Forest Service expects an increase of no more than 2,500 acres a year. Kudzu ( Pueraria lobata) is an invasive vine that was introduced to the U.S. from Japan and distributed throughout the South for erosion control. Wilson, the American biologist and naturalist at Harvard, says the central Gulf Coast states “harbor the most diversity of any part of eastern North America, and probably any part of North America.” Yet when it comes to environmental and conservation funding, the South remains a poor stepchild. It cannot be over emphasized that total eradication of kudzu is necessary to prevent re-growth. Many historians believe it was the persuasive power of a popular radio host and Atlanta Constitution columnist named Channing Cope that finally got those seedlings in the ground. It grows quickly over other small plants, trees, and on to structures like telephone poles. In the 1930s and 40s, with the country in the throes of the Great Depression and aftermath of the Dust Bowl, kudzu … More than 70 million kudzu seedlings were grown in nurseries by the newly created Soil Conservation Service. Kudzu is native to Asia, particularly China, Japan and Korea, and has been used in Eastern medicine for centuries. Keep up-to-date on: © 2020 Smithsonian Magazine. It’s related to five species in the genus Pueraria (P. montana, P. lobata, P. edulis, P. phaseoloides and P. thomsoni). All land owners in an infestation area must coopera… Today, it frequently appears on popular top-ten lists of invasive species. Kudzu: Where did it come from? But it did not become the plant that’s eating America all by itself. Cookie Policy 17th Annual Photo Contest Finalists Announced. In the end, kudzu may prove to be among the least appropriate symbols of the Southern landscape and the planet’s future. Here are a few kudzu bug characteristics: Present: AL, AR, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MO, MD, MS, NC, NE, NJ, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, WV For a CAPS/CERIS/USDA map of past/presen… They were first sighted in Georgia in 2009 and are suspected to originate from Asia. 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